Gonch fled across the plateau until he found a place where he could
conceal himself and here he stayed until he judged that all danger of
detection was past. Then he made a wide detour and proceeded to the Rock
of Moustier, not from the valley side but across the heights, a route
rarely or never taken by ones desiring to reach the grotto below.
As he halted at the cliff overlooking the cave-threshold, he caught sight
of a man squatting far beneath him beside a fire. It was Pic engaged
in weapon-making. His right arm did not rise and fall with each stroke
of the hammerstone. He was devoting his efforts to the finer work,
retouching flakes with the mysterious finishing tool. Gonch lay flat upon
his chest and stomach and peered over the cliff. While so doing he was
unconscious of the fact that he had dislodged several stone chips and
caused them to fall.
Beneath him, the giant flint-worker still squatted motionless beside
the fire but his ears were straining, his brain working rapidly as he
sought the meaning of dust and limestone chips mysteriously descended
upon him from above. The sun was warm. It was quite a natural gesture for
him to turn his head askew and downward at the same time and wipe the
perspiration from it with his arm; also it enabled him to catch a glimpse
of a man’s head peering down upon him from the cliff.
Pic resumed his former position but now he was staring at his feet, his
brows contracted in deep thought. For several minutes he maintained this
attitude, then his brows lifted and he glanced at what he held in his
hand. It was a ridiculously simple affair—a piece of bone not much larger
than his forefinger, smooth, straight and notched at one end.
“Men have died for even less,” he soliloquized. “I roamed the world over
to find this piece of bone—the Terrace Man’s finishing tool. Others may
be doing the same. Yes that’s it; I am sure of it now,” and he scowled
and gnashed his teeth in a way that would have horrified Gonch, had he
been there to see.
For a time, Pic remained squatting motionless; finally he rose to his
feet, piled more wood upon the fire and made other elaborate preparations
as if for departure, shouldering his ax and gazing long and earnestly
down the valley as though there were something there that required his
attention. He gathered up his flint-flakes and took them to the cave and
last of all, secreted the bone tool near the cliff wall beneath a flat
stone. This latter maneuver was conducted mysteriously and with much
deliberation. When all was arranged to his satisfaction, he swung his ax
over his right shoulder and descended the causeway to the valley below.
The ledge was now deserted. Gonch could see the master weapon maker
sauntering leisurely down the causeway. He had also seen his host conceal
something beneath a flat stone near the foot of the cliffs. It must be
something valuable judging from the elaborate precautions taken to hide
it from view. It might be the flint-worker’s finishing tool. If so, this
was an opportunity not to be missed.
The cliff-wall overlooking the ledge was too steep and smooth for a
speedy descent, so Gonch sought the rougher and more sloping northeast
side, the one opposite that which Pic was descending. This shut off his
view of the latter and not until he reached the level of the cave-ledge,
could he again obtain a glimpse of the causeway and anyone who might be
near the cave. He saw no one. Pic had vanished and no doubt was making
his way down the valley along the base of the Rock.
Feeling assured on this point and convinced that he was alone and safe
from detection, Gonch crept towards the flat stone lying at the foot of
the cliff wall, near the mouth of the cave.
His hand was now clutching the stone. Another second and the latter would
have been raised disclosing what lay beneath, when a rustling sounded at
the cave-mouth. Gonch turned quickly, then sank down upon the threshold
in an agony of dread, for there stood Pic, filling the cave-mouth with
his great bulk and gazing down upon the Muskman with a look of withering
scorn.
“I lost something, I—” stammered Gonch but the other cut him short.
“You lie,” roared Pic, his face becoming rapidly convulsed with rage.
“You lie and have lied ever since you came here. I know you now and why
you came. To the muck with you and your filthy smell. Your whole body
reeks with carrion. Your welcome is at an end, imposter. Begone.”
“But—you mistake,” protested the Muskman, summoning fresh courage on
finding his life in no immediate danger. Pic’s ire only increased. His
face became that of a demon.
“You are alive now,” he thundered. “Soon you Will not be. Go at once.
If you are found in the valley after the next sunrise, your friends the
hyenas will be cracking your bones”; and Pic spat upon the cringing
Muskman as he would have spat upon a snake.
Gonch crawled away along the ledge and down the causeway like a beaten
hound, terrified but thankful enough that the giant’s teeth and hands
were not now tearing his throat. The farther he got away, however, the
more comfortable he felt in body and mind, and by the time he reached the
valley his courage had in a great measure returned.
[Illustration: “THERE STOOD PIC”]
He was safe—for the present—and having no immediate concern on that
point, he began to consider and reflect bitterly upon the sudden
miscarriage of his plans. Now he could no more think of persuading the
master flint-worker to return with him than he could of compelling him to
do so by force. The very thought of using force on Pic made him squirm.
He might more easily overcome a lion.
As he walked down the valley, his thoughts turned to Totan and the
men of Castillo. What would they say when he returned discredited and
empty-handed? The big hetman was not one who dealt gently with vain
boasters. Gonch could almost feel the hetman’s club crashing down upon
his pate. Pic here, Totan there; whether he stayed or went, it was all
the same—a giant waiting to crush the life out of him. Gonch felt himself
between the devil and the deep, blue sea.
Pic was a friend of animals and a lover of peace, but the prosperity and
power that he had brought upon the cave-men of the Vézère was not to be
denied. They were the strongest men, the most successful hunters in all
the world, and all because of Pic, the genius that ruled over them. No
one had said that the master flint-worker was hetman of the Mousterians,
but Gonch knew it now, and he knew it without being told. He had failed
miserably. Pic the Lion had snared Gonch the Fox with scarce an effort.
To all appearances the former was but a flint-worker, skilled beyond
belief and a physical giant to boot, but with the disposition of a child,
peacefully inclined towards man and beast. A fool? hardly; even though
Gonch hated him for not being one. His arm ruled over the Vézère like
the paw of a gigantic lion, its claws drawn into their sheath-pads, its
powerful muscles hidden beneath their covering of heavy fur.
It was all just as had first been told to him in the southland. Gonch
bit his lips until the blood came. Now he saw the truth of what he did
not then believe from the lips of the man he himself had slain near the
northern Cantabrian slopes. The Mousterian domain was the most powerful
in all the world, and the arm that ruled over it, the mind that guided
its destinies, were those of a simple flint-worker and weapon maker—Pic,
the Mammoth Man.